A series of events aiming to support Ukrainian chess players and their families affected by the war were held yesterday, on International Women’s Day, by the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess together with Chess24.
The charity marathon included the Chess for Ukraine arena tournament named after the World Champions Anna & Mariya Muzychuk and Anna Ushenina, the team competition and a fundraiser to help female chess players in Ukraine.
The main hosts of the Women’s Day special broadcast were IM Jovanka Houska and the Chair of the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess IM Eva Repkova. They were joined by special female guests who spoke about the role of chess in their lives, and their feeling about being a woman in a male-dominated chess community.
FIDE Managing Director WGN Dana Reizniece-Ozola, who was one of the guests of the broadcast, pointed out that the sense of belonging to a chess community gives a person a very important sense of the security.
“This whole project is dedicated to a very serious and very important cause, which is helping our chess players in Ukraine. This is a very good momentum, when you see how important actually it is if you belong to such a community like chess family. Because if gives you a better chance that somebody will really care of you and try to help when you are in a difficult position. That is demanding from yourself as well. Because that demands also that while you are in a better position you ought to help the others. This is such a heartwarming feeling that there might be somebody out there who would think of me when I have some difficulties or some crisis.”
Another guest, the Chair of Commission for Women’s Chess in Americas WGM Martha Fierro talked about the development of chess and especially women’s chess in Ecuador:
“In Ecuador chess is becoming more popular. When I started to play in 1991, there were not so many women players. But now we have more support from the government and media and more and more ladies and girls join in.”
Women’s Day Team Competition was joined by teams from chess24, FIDE, Play Magnus & Chessable. The FIDE WOM team was represented by WGN Dana Reizniece-Ozola (FIDE Managing Director), the women’s world champion (2001–2004) GM Zhu Chen (FIDE Treasurer), WIM Salomeja Zaksaite (Chair of FIDE Fair Play Commission) and WGM Martha Fierro (Chair of Commission for Women’s Chess in Americas). A 7-team round-robin tournament was won by FIDE WOM team scoring 16/18 points. Team Chess24 finished a point behind the winner. Chess24 Spain with 13 points came out third.
During the tournaments viewers were asked to make their donations in the fundraiser for Ukrainian chess players and their families. While preparing the broadcast the FIDE WOM Commission reached out to a number of women chess players in Ukraine, caught up in a conflict that would have been unimaginable just a month ago, and got their feedback.
Here are some of letters received:
“I am in Kharkiv, with no electricity, no mobile service, no 4g, no groceries at the stores, and those few places that do sell groceries charge crazy prices. Every three hours jets are dropping bombs on peaceful civilians.”
“I am in Kherson. I had a few hours to make the decision to leave the city with small children, leaving my very sick husband at home by himself. We do not have safe sheltering. The only thing we can do is to pray and hope to not to go crazy from being so helpless.”
“I spent six days and five nights in the basement without utilities, and am now looking for another place of refuge. I witnessed the hell on Earth.”
You can read more and make a donation here.
The fundraising campaign is not over yet. Please help us show our support for Ukrainian chess community!
You can watch the full broadcast of the events on FIDE’s official Youtube channel.
